Bev & Mike comment on a furniture, fabrics and accessories of interest to interior designers and their clients in Portland, Oregon.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

11 Exciting Design Materials

"Contract" magazine has a thought provoking article titled Fabric of the Future: Innovative Design Materials to Come. It lists eleven new materials and technologies which "offer a glimpse into where innovation is taking us, both in terms of sustainability and simply as cool ideas. Each one represents a step forward in an existing idea, but gives us an idea of where materials in interiors could go next."

UltraCanvas Backlite - Can be used for indoor or outdoor signage, displays, lightboxes, and tradeshows.

Navi Floor® - Applications are for the navigation of robots, the logistics and locating of goods and products, as guidance system in e.g. stores as well as collecting of information of the course of movement of customers with shopping carts.

Concrete Cloth™ - It is currently being used by designers, architects, sculptors and artists in a range of projects including furniture design, complex curved roofing, public sculpture, and digital printing design.

VarioLine®- As an alternative to materials such as plywood, MDF, and other structural construction panels, this durable, rigid, lightweight panel offers a colored alternative that withstands time and whatever else nature and humans can throw at it. The material is also completely recyclable and could end up as clothing, some food storage bowls, or even another polymer panel at the end of its life.

Transparent LED signboard - Transparent flexible polymer sheet that incorporates working LED lights.

SARATECH® Permasorb Wallpaper - Wall covering that absorbs chemicals from walls and are able to remove contaminants from within the wall structure, including PCB, PCP, pesticides and radon that were released largely by construction, and auxiliary materials used primarily in the 1960s and 1970s.